


Friends and Benefits

by Nina22783



Category: Football RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-04
Updated: 2014-11-04
Packaged: 2018-02-24 03:11:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2566172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nina22783/pseuds/Nina22783
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lionel Messi hasn’t been having a great season and someone he never thought would care about his poor performance, seems to care far too much.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Friends and Benefits

It had been an awful game, one of those matches where he knew he was going to lose even when they seemed to be ahead in the scoreboards just because the pace was going against them. Lionel Messi, knew he wouldn’t be walking back to his hotel room happy tonight, he knew the night wasn’t about him breaking any records or anything else really. He just felt like he was floundering. 

There was a time when the jeering crowds at the Barnabeau only strengthened his resolve to win, when listening to thousands of Madridistas singing their harrowing club anthem only made him focus on the adrenaline coursing through his veins. He realised before the game even really begun as he looked up at the supporters in the stands that he no longer felt like the ‘Messi’ that had played here before. The one they loved to hate. He hadn’t felt like that in a while. Not since the world cup final after which he couldn’t admit to himself that he seemed to have lost heart for the game that was his whole life. He still had the head for it and that was some saving grace because it still meant he was better than most people on a pitch but it wasn’t enough to meet his standards. Not by a long shot. His standards had fallen and even though he knew why, it was impossible to tell anyone and usually he couldn’t really even admit it to himself. Fear had him perfectly paralysed. He didn’t really know how to deal with fear and now that only made him back into corners he didn’t want to consider.  
He surreptitiously glanced in the direction of his ‘arch-rival’ doing his stretches at the other end of the pitch, looking every inch the conquering hero that he had been this season - in spades. Looking at Ronaldo didn’t make Messi feel determined, only dejected. 

Nearly two hours later, Barca had lost the first Clasico of the season. They had lost decisively. Three goals to one and Leo had played miserably. His ankle was killing him and his mind was numb, in part from the embarrassment and in part due to the dull roar of the crowd. He felt tone deaf – both literally and emotionally.  
The team was silent as they made their way to the lockers and later on to their hotel rooms and Neymar kept trying to talk to him. Leo liked the kid but he often felt compelled to tolerate his company way more than necessary out of a sense of politeness. Leo answered his questions about their game in patented monosyllables but the Brazilian didn’t get the hint that he wanted his space. That was the trouble with being one of the world’s most famous borderline - agoraphobes. Everyone thought that all your silences meant the same thing, that it was just ‘Leo being Leo’…very few understood that some silences meant he needed to be alone and others that he enjoyed listening. Neymar was no Kun. Kun would have known when to shut up and when to push.  
God, he missed Kun. 

At the hotel, Leo quickly took a shower and changed into a pair of grey sweatpants and an undershirt. He called his son to wish him goodnight and that cheered him up a fraction or so. Then he decided to plunge headfirst into the book he brought with him on the plane. It had become a post-match ritual for the past few years. Leo never watched television because it was a minefield navigating channels trying to avoid mention of his own name and predictions about his present and future weaved in with his past ‘glory’. A book allowed him to completely focus on following something outside of himself and to forget the game for a while. Kun had predicted that one could tell how Leo was feeling by gauging how difficult and ‘boring’ the book he was reading looked. He wasn’t far off - Leo did reserve the tougher books for the tougher matches. Tonight it was Borges, hard enough to keep Leo’s mind busy and with the added advantage of being Argentinian.

He was sitting on his hotel bed, head cushioned against the headboard, thick reading glasses on his nose and thumbing through ‘Labrynths’ (literally) when there was a hard knock on his door. Seriously, Neymar needed a telling off, especially since he had made it pretty clear that he didn’t want to talk to anyone.  
Leo swung open the door abruptly “Look Ney, I really do want to be alo--,” his voice gave out when his eyes focused on the tall frame crowding his doorway. “Cristiano?! What on earth are you doing here?” Leo barely choked out, shell shocked. 

The other striker just looked down at him, eyebrow raised at him and pushed past him into the room. “What on earth are you…doing?” he responded.  
“Excuse me?” Leo was beyond confused.  
“What the fuck, are you doing out there? You played like shit today. What is wrong with you,” Cristiano Ronaldo was ranting. Hands swinging in the air, pacing sideways along the hotel room, looking a lot like he did when a refereeing decision didn’t go his way on the pitch.  
It took Leo a few seconds before the sheer hot rage he was feeling boiled over and his face flushed an angry, resentful blotchy red. “What the fuck is it to you?! You have no right coming over here to what…rub it in? What is wrong with you?” Leo had never really believed most of the shit people spewed about Ronaldo but right now all those long-winded tales about his arrogance were ringing pretty darn true.  
“Forgive me for caring! You’re better than that. You know you’re better than that. Fuck, I KNOW you’re better than that and you just seem to be … I don’t know…like you don’t care or something. Why?” Ronaldo persisted, completely overriding Leo’s little outburst. 

Leo suddenly felt utterly defeated. It was bad enough that he had lost…to Madrid. Bad enough that he knew he was playing like crap but now Cristiano fucking Ronaldo felt he had the right to come tell him so. He retreated into that quiet, lost space he often did when he felt cornered, whether it was on a pitch, during an interview or when Antonella was screaming at him to tell her how he was ‘feeling’. He sighed loudly, and spoke extremely quietly “Look Cristiano, it’s late. I’ve had a long night and as much as I appreciate you coming all the way to tell me how far I’ve fallen. Why don’t you please just go celebrate with your teammates and enjoy your win?”  
Oddly enough, that seemed to get the taller man’s attention. 

Cristiano Ronaldo focused his gaze on the smaller man. Leo Messi looked…so lost. There was just no other word for it and it scared him more than he could admit. He knew he had been a dick to come here and that it was unforgivable but he was seething. Winning against Barcelona meant nothing to Cris, when Messi barely even seemed to be playing the game. It was almost as if he hadn’t won. It was almost as if his greatest rival had decided to completely check out of all competition leaving Cris to collect his laurels. Cris hated even the idea of winning by default. He was working, he was running and he was scoring and he expected…no, he demanded that Leo do the same. It was what they did. It was an odd feeling, because Cris suddenly felt like he had been running a race for years with one person and some days he was ahead and other days his rival was winning and that was what motivated them both. It felt like somewhere along the line Leo simply withdrew and Cris now found himself at the finish line but all alone. He felt, rather perversely abandoned. “Look Leo, I know I have no right to say this...b-“ he fumbled, suddenly nervous and aware of the absurdity of the circumstances. 

“Then please don’t Cristiano,” Messi whispered, voice nearly cracking, barely loud enough for Cris to hear him. It shut Cris down cold. Such a lost, defeated sound. There was something about the way Leo said his name that made Cris want to comfort the smaller striker, it also made Cris idly wonder how many other ways he would like hearing his name come out of Messi’s mouth. He quickly buried the thought.  
“It’s not like we’re friends,” he added solemnly.  
“Why not?” Cris heard himself responding “Maybe I want to be,” before he even really knew what he was saying.  
Leo laughed a little at that, a bitter, jaded…completely un-Messi-like laugh that stung at Cris’ skin like salt on an open wound. “You want to be my friend? Wow, I really must be pathetic. If you’ve decided to take pity on me and finally get to know me,” Leo mocked and it made Cris seethe.  
“I’ve always wanted us to know each other,” Cris pushed on… and Leo scoffed a little “Seriously. I know it hasn’t come across and well, yes, I can be a dick when I lose and to be fair I lost a lot of things to you. But it’s not like you tried either. We’re the only two people in the world who know what it’s like to be us and you think that’s not enough to at least share a meal or a conversation?” Cris rushed out. 

Leo had no idea where any of this was going. “I don’t know what you want me to say Cristiano. Sure I would have liked us to at least know each other but it’s worked long enough without that and frankly I really don’t think I want to start ‘to get to know you’ tonight,” he sighed in exasperation.  
Cris smiled at that sloppy phrasing, imagining a completely alternate scenario of how they could ‘get to know each other better’. What was wrong with him?! There was just something so achingly vulnerable about seeing Messi like this – in his sweats, barefoot and bashful. Usually it annoyed the hell out of Cris, Messi’s patented ‘good boy’ trope was jarring in comparison to his ‘pretty boy’ trope but right now he was just as taken in by it as anyone else. “So you’re saying you wouldn’t mind the idea?”  
“Actually, no.” Leo nipped the conversation short. 

Cristiano bristled at that. He had no idea why really. It wasn’t as if he was dying to be friends with Lionel Messi but the fact that the other seemed even less enthusiastic at the prospect wounded his pride.  
“Why the fuck not?” he demanded, all attempts at subtlety pushed aside.  
“One word. Pep.” Leo said. Looking straight into his eyes with that determined steel in his gaze that Cristiano recognised so well and was frankly, relieved to see again. Of course, Pep. Well, he had to hand it to Messi, the man was loyal to a fault and in retrospect Cris knew he had been a bit of a dick pushing the ex-Blaugrana coach in that classic of clasico’s.  
“Ah,” he said quietly. “Yeah, I’m not too proud of that. I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t have pushed him, it was a dick move.” He accepted, as humbly as he was capable.  
“It was,” Leo whispered quietly. 

“So,” Cristiano weeded out his conversation. Looking closely at the shorter man in front of him. He suddenly noticed something odd.  
“So…” Leo echoed.  
“Since when do you wear glasses?” Cris flipped the conversation “and, is that a…book?!” he asked, as if Leo was holding a poisonous raptor in his left hand rather than a selection of essays.  
“Yes it’s a book. And I wear glasses for reading,” he replied matter of fact-ly.  
“So you…read, like for real?!” he spluttered. Cris still couldn’t really wrap his mind around the idea.  
“Yes, books are generally used for reading,” Leo deadpanned and Cris made a face at that. 

Both players were by now at a loss as to where this, whatever this was, was going. Leo decided to take charge of the situation while he still could. “Look Cristiano, I really need to go to sleep and I thin-“  
“How about a movie?” Ronaldo responded at the same time, desperate not to lose this opening between them. It had taken years for them to have a conversation, of any sort and he didn’t want to let that pass without note.  
“What?! You want to watch a movie with me the night you won a clasico?!” Leo countered, incredulous.  
“Look Leo, I get it. I’ve been a dick but I do want us to be friends and I’m here and there’s a TV so…so why not…I mean it’s not like I’m…I mean…you and I, we could…you know…it’s,” Cris found himself suddenly anxious and definitely rambling. Floundering.  
Leo picked up on the fact that Cristiano Ronaldo was nervous. That, he- Lionel Messi- was making him nervous and the sheer absurdity of that equation had him taking pity on the taller man.  
“Fine, TV.”


End file.
